Tag Archives: delivery

Malaysia Airlines Forges Strategic Alliance with Manchester United; Introduces Three New Destinations

Malaysia Airlines has taken a significant step to broaden its global footprint by forging a strategic, multi-year partnership with Manchester United football club as its Official Commercial Airline. This collaboration aims to extend Malaysia Airlines’ renowned Malaysian Hospitality to Manchester United’s extensive community of over 1.1 billion fans worldwide. Through co-branded marketing initiatives, both brands seek to enhance brand visibility across diverse global audiences while delivering top-notch service and immersive experiences.

Simultaneously, at the MATTA Fair 2024, Malaysia Airlines unveiled plans to introduce flights to three new destinations: Malé, Maldives (MLE); Da Nang, Vietnam (DAD); and Chiang Mai, Thailand (CNX). These new routes will offer improved connectivity from Kuala Lumpur, with ticket sales commencing on 22 March 2024. Daily flights to MLE will commence on 1 August 2024, daily flights to DAD will begin on 24 September 2024, and five-times-weekly flights to CNX will launch on 15 August 2024.

This will mark the airline’s 13th destination in South Asia and 16th in ASEAN as it seeks to boost its presence within key markets, strengthening its position as the gateway to Asia and beyond in line with its commercial elevation journey. As a member of the oneworld® alliance, Malaysia Airlines currently offers superior connectivity to more than 900 destinations in 170 territories across the globe.

In the same event, the airline also unveiled its new A330neo Business Class and Economy Class seats as part of its fleet modernisation plan, ahead of the first aircraft’s scheduled delivery in Q3 2024. The new A330neo cabin will feature many ‘firsts’ for the airline and historically in its fleet.

Datuk Captain Izham Ismail, Group Managing Director of Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG), said, “Malaysia Airlines has undergone a chequered journey over the last decade, however through it all, our resilience has remained steadfast. Having stabilised our balance sheet and recording our strongest-ever financial year performance since the past decade, we are now in a stronger position to steer our focus towards accelerating investments into our product and service delivery to elevate the customer experience.

With our Manchester United collaboration, the expansion of our network to three new routes, and the unveiling of the new cabin seats on our new A330neo; this sets the benchmark of exciting things to come as we redefine what it means to travel onboard Malaysian Hospitality. ”

IndiGo to double its fleet size by 2030

India’s largest carrier by market share, IndiGo is looking to double its fleet by 2030. Having ordered for around 970 planes, the airline is set to receive one aircraft per week (50 aircraft) over the next year, IndiGo’s chief executive officer Pieter Elbers said.

The airline, which added six new destinations in the last quarter, plans to start flights to Bali (Indonesia) and Medina (Saudi Arabia) in the upcoming quarter (Q3FY24) as part of its international expansion plans. “Q2 was when internationalisation came to fruition. We will continue our internationalisation,” Elbers said, adding that the airline is currently operating around 500 routes, including over 100 international.

Of its massive orderbook the airline is awaiting the delivery of the Airbus A321XLRs (extra long range) aircraft that will begin joining its fleet late in 2024 to fly non-stop flights (in the duration of up to 7-8 hours) from India to Athens and Seoul, Elbers revealed.

In fact, going forward, the focus of the airline is not just to connect international destinations out of metros, but also other parts of the country (read tier-II cities). “It (A321XLRs) will not only stretch our reach further into Asia and Europe but also within India itself,” Elbers said.

IndiGo, which recently signed a codeshare partnership with UK flag carrier British Airways, is now looking to expand its codeshare with the Australian flag carrier Qantas. It has been scouting for more global partners to spread its wings to destinations across the globe, already having in place codeshare partnerships with Turkish Airlines, Qatar Airways, Qantas, Virgin Atlantic, KLM, American Airlines and Air France.

In the quarter ended September, Indigo posted a net profit of INR 189 crore, marking a 28% growth year-on-year. It expects to close the next quarter at 25% YoY growth moderated by the growth it saw in last year’s third quarter. This was a profitable Q2 after five years, which traditionally is considered a weaker quarter in the airline business.

IndiGo is also “well on track” to achieve the target of carrying 100 million passengers this financial year, Elbers said.  (Source Deccan Herald)

Travelport, Air Canada renew content distribution agreement, including NDC

Travelport, a global technology company that powers travel bookings for hundreds of thousands of travel suppliers worldwide, and Air Canada, Canada’s flagship carrier, have renewed their content distribution agreement, which includes New Distribution Capability (NDC) content and servicing.

With this agreement, Travelport-connected agencies worldwide will continue to have access to the widest range of products and ancillaries from Air Canada, along with superior servicing capabilities. As Travelport delivers retail-ready content from the carrier, including NDC content, agency customers will be able to easily search, view and compare Air Canada’s dynamic offers all in one place. Travelport and Air Canada anticipate the launch of the airline’s full NDC solution on Travelport+ in the coming months, which will include full end-to-end servicing of NDC bookings to help agencies easily manage trip changes and exchanges.

“Travelport and Air Canada share a decades-long relationship and we’re pleased to be taking this important next step as we modernize our distribution capabilities,” said Mark Nasr, Executive Vice President, Marketing and Digital for Air Canada. “Together, we will enable the delivery of the full range of content and fares that Air Canada provides to our travel trade partners, as well as access to the many upcoming products and services that are focused on improving travel for our customers.”

“Our new long-term agreement with Air Canada is a result of our shared focus on making it easier for agents to shop, sell and service dynamic offers with access to even more content from all sources – including NDC,” said Jason Clarke, Chief Commercial Officer, Travel Partners at Travelport. “As we prepare to roll out our Air Canada NDC solution in the coming months, our agency customers can rest assured they will have continued access to extensive offerings from Air Canada, including personalized offers and the ability to easily manage all aspects of their customers’ travel within a single view of product features and ancillaries.”

 

Akasa Air takes delivery of first 737 Max aircraft from Boeing in US

New airline Akasa Air on June 16 took delivery of the first 737 Max aircraft from Boeing in Seattle, USA, a statement said.

Three months after Indian aviation regulator DGCA gave the green light to Max planes, Akasa Air had on November 26 last year signed a deal with Boeing to purchase 72 Max aircraft.

Commenting on the successful delivery of first aircraft , Vinay Dube, Founder, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Akasa Air, said, This is indeed a symbolic milestone in the journey of Akasa Air, bringing us one step closer to the process of obtaining our Air Operator’s Permit (AOP) and leading to our commercial launch.”

The airline, which is backed by ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala and aviation veterans Vinay Dube and Aditya Ghosh, received the no-objection certificate from the Ministry of Civil Aviation in August 2021 to launch commercial flight operations.

In a statement, the airline said, “With a strong commitment to democratise the skies, the airlines’ total order of 72 aircraft includes an initial delivery of 18 aircraft by March 2023, followed by delivery of the remaining 54 aircraft over the course of the next four years. (Source Business Standard)